Author(s): Sheyla Smanioto; Laura Garmeson (Translator); Sophie Lewis

Novel | Brazil | Translated fiction | 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize long list | Small Press | 2024 Republic of Conscousness Prize short list

This remarkable Brazilian novel has been garlanded with multiple awards and accolades since its initial publication, as Desesterro: the prestigious Sesc Prize for Literature, the Machado de Assis award and the Jabuti award. The story follows four generations of female characters as they navigate the hardships of life in the parched landscape of the Brazilian sertao. Male figures are peripheral, but are also revealed as the origin of much of the suffering in the novel, generating for the women a kind of exile not only in relation to the land but to their sense of self. This is a ground-breaking feminist work, a bracing modernist fable, of sorts, formally reminiscent of A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing.

Review:

'Full of originality and lyricism ... it's a punch to the stomach, in the best sense. At times dark, at times vibrating with hope in every line.' Larissa Bezerra, O Diario de Maringa

'The situation, the characters and the reality depicted in Out of Earth flow at one remove from the usual run of literature in our times. Her writing shows a rare audacity.' Rodrigo Casarin, Suplemento Pernambuco

Prizes: Winner of Premio Sesc de Literatura 2015. Runner-up for The Premio Jabuti (the "Tortoise Prize") 2016. Short-listed for The Premio Machado de Assis (the Machado de Assis Prize) 2016.

Author Biography: Sheyla Smanioto was born in 1990 into a working-class family in Diadema, Sao Paulo state, which was then the most violent town in Brazil. In 2017 she was selected by Forbes magazine as one of the people under 30 making a difference in Brazil. With her two published novels, Desesterro (2015, appearing here as Out of Earth) and Meu corpo ainda quente (2020), she won the SESC, Biblioteca Nacional and Jabuti prizes, as well as being shortlisted for the Sao Paulo literature prize. Sophie Lewis is a translator and an editor. Working from Portuguese and French, she has translated numerous authors and she co-founded the Shadow Heroes translation workshops enterprise - www.shadowheroes.org. Sophie's translations have been shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff and Republic of Consciousness prizes, and longlisted for the International Booker Prize.